Tuesday, March 13, 2012

New collectibles please

I'm in need of something new to collect. With my 168 companion pets, 121 mounts, 12525 achievement points, 34822 honorable kills, awsome PVE- and PVP-gear I can be proud of, most of the cool archaeology items, more than enough tabards, cool transmog fashion from around the world and more titles than I bother thinking of, you might think to yourself that I've done more than enough collecting already? My stable is filled to the brim! And so are my bags, bank and void storage. But I’m telling you; I need something new that I can collect. Please. :)

This is a long ramble. If you want to get to the point, scroll down to "Trophies".

Achievement Points

I have a lot of achievement points. And I'm missing a lot of achievement points. I only need Kalimdor for Loremaster, I only need some random group from trade to finish up some old raids and I need a gazillion PVP-achievements. But achievement-hunting requires the right kind of mood, and I'm not there right now. I will be there again some day. But not right now.

Mists of Pandaria will change achievements in a big way. It will introduce accountwide achievements. This can/will mean two things;

Almost all achievements will be shared among all characters.

There will be achievements for the "total" of your account. Think Guild Achievements. We're likely to get

Level all classes to level 90.

Level all alliance races to level 90. And then horde. And then all of them.

Funny thing when I divided them into tiers, is that the Death Knight-, Mage-, Rogue-, Druid-tier is THE tier where I don't have any high-level characters. It's basicly a very unpopular tier in Lae-world. And still these tokens drop ALL the time in my raids. ;) I really hate that mage. Druid is... I don't know. Rogue boring. Death Knight is actually ok, but still never got one past level 65.

This achievement will require me to do some thinking and tough decision-making. How important are achievements to me? Are they important enough to actually level a rogue? Then it occured to me... I can send a Scroll of Resurrection to my second account and get a free rogue! But do I really want a rogue...? When I instead could make another hunter? We'll see.

About the races; all my noteworthy characters are draenei, except for the warlock. It's very very very unlikely I'm gonna level all races to 90.

Archaeology is a nice relaxing way to do something in-game while chatting with guildies, watching a movie or listening to music or podcasts. It has a high insane-factor to it, so I suggest to take it easy, and perhaps leave the missing artifacts alone after you completed all achievements associated with the profession. Together with the Turtle from fishing, this is not my kind of grind, as it's a bit too random. DAMN YOU CRAWLING CLAW!

Having completed this achievement, there is not much reason collecting companions, except "I love you, sweet sweet companion pet, and want you for my very own". With over 150 companions, I'm not able to show them all off in a satisfying way. Luckily there are addons that can autosummon them (note to self: don't have it enabled in raids and lose out on global cooldowns), I use PetLeash myself.

With the pet battle system, companions will be of much higher importance in Mists of Pandaria. Almost all of them will be tradable, they will be shared among our characters, wild critters will become tameable, and we will be able to train them at special trainers and level them up for Pet Battles. Both Companion Pets and the Pet Battles will bring new achievements with them, and I'm looking forward to this cute little time sink. :)

Same as with the companions, there isn't much reason to collect mounts after this achievement is obtained. Still, Mists of Pandaria will bring new achievements, and... New mounts! :D Not being able to fly in the new zones until we're level 90 also means we can show off those ground mounts. I recommend addon GoGoMount for randomly selecting among your favorites. The addon works very well with Aspect of Cheetah/Pack as well.

Gear

Gear is a temporary joy. It cab be so fun and rewarding to work for and obtain. Then the next raid tier comes along, and it's worth nothing. This will (luckily) happen with Mists of Pandaria too, many times. Looking forward to it!

Honorable Kills

Honorable Kills isn't something you can collect, in my point of view. It's a sideeffect of doing battlegrounds, for achievements or pure bloodlust. I've elaborated on this topic earlier.

Tabards

Thirty Tabards: Equip 30 unique tabards. Nice way of showing off something you've worked for. Or tie in your outfit. For collecting, rather meh.

Transmogrification

I love transmog!!! And I'm not alone. It's so simple really; make awsomelooking gear that people aren't allowed to wear for 7 years, and then open it up. Having collected a lot of sets already, all my inventory slots are now taken. I have no doubt transmogging will get even bigger, but I hope it comes with extra and bigger bags as well.

Under you can see the next transmog set I'm thinking of getting next, if I can find a matching ranged weapon. As I'm not very creative myself, this is of course stolen from someone else; WoW: Fashion.

I've been pondering two ideas that I'm hoping they'll add some day; Trophies and Tattoos.

Trophies

Quivers, ammo pouches, poison bottles, books, sabre tooths, scalps, Mr Pointy. Visible cool stuff hanging from your belt or your shoulder or wherever. They don’t necessarily give you stats or other advantages, they just look cool. Rather than having them come from raids or PVP like most other stuff, perhaps they could come from exploring, questing or soloing?

Tattoos

Lae with a "From Dusk till Dawn"-tattoo on her upper arm/neck? ;) World of Warcraft armor doesn't leave much room for tattoos I'm afraid. This idea is actually more for the dwarves. Questing through Twilight Highlands in Cataclysm has really opened my eyes for how bad-ass the dwarves can be. If not tattoos for everyone, please give it to the dwarves so that they can be badass Wildhammer dwarves!

And then add some face markings, scars and body art for the rest of us when you see how popular it gets.

I like the trophy idea. I have the opposite problem with collectibles. Since my hunter just recently became my main I need to start doing more with her. There are so many classic and wrath dungeons I haven't done yet. I guess that's a place to start my solo'ing adventures!

I really want facial tattoos for Dwarves. When Cataclysm was announced, I got hopeful that Shamans might come with them, but nope. I'd race change my Draenei to a Dwarf in a heartbeat if she could have big blue tattoos.

I'd also love more grey items to have uses. Take the Scandalous Nightgown as an example, what would be the harm in allowing bank alts/people hanging out in SW/Orgrimmar to look scandalous at night. Perhaps a re-skin of the Robes of the Guardian Saint in black, gives no stats.